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In reference to the posts of Peter Stillman and Edith Kuiper: 
 
Peter Stillman wrote: 
"Even Adam Smith on occasion could sneak in references to power, lost though they are on
most later economists whose views derive from Smith."
 
Adam Smith did touch on the power variable in his own way in many instances. He made
interesting comments on the tendency to form ‘combinations’ on the part of workers and
masters (WN, Book I, chapter Viii on "Of the Wages of labor"). He referred to the latter
always entering into tacit, but constant and uniform combinations to depress wages, even
below their natural rate. The workers, out of their desperation, retaliate by forming
defensive combinations and are extravagantly clamorous in trying to frighten the masters
in compliance. He writes:
 
"The masters upon these occasions are just as clamorous upon the other side, and never
cease to call aloud for assistance of the civil magistrate, and the execution of those
laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combinations of servants,
labourers, and journeymen". He then concludes that the deck is sort of stacked against the
workers and they derive no benefit from their actions.
 
My sense is that although Smith had a clear understanding of the power held by the
hegemonic class, he attached not enough significance to it because his solutions were
always very economistic. This is his legacy that survived and not the behavioral and
sociological aspects of his thinking.
 
Edith Kuiper wrote: 
"The differences between women and men however, seem for Smith to go much  
deeper, although he addressed these differences only implicitly and then  
assumes them fixed." 
 
Here too we see a similar recognition of the position of women in the power hierarchy. In
his discussions of marriage and family, he shows a distinct bias towards men’s rights
vis-à-vis women. In his Lectures on Jurisprudence he wrote that this was the result of men
making the laws which they naturally made more favorable to themselves. But then he adds
that:
 
" . . . as in almost all contracts of marriage the husband has a considerable superiority
to the wife, the injury done to his honor and love will be more grievous, as all injuries
done to a superior by an inferior are more sensibly felt than those which are done to an
inferior by one whom they look upon as above them" (LJ, 1978, 147).
 
Here his conclusion seems to derive from the patriarchal biases which run through Smith’s
works. He knows the greater power of men in society, but accepts it as somehow natural.
 
Lastly, I too found Hugo Cerqueira’s comments very useful. 
 
Sumitra Shah 
 
 
 
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